


Michael Gray Whump Drabbles

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Whump, hints of sexual violence, see chapter titles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Some whump drabbles for Michael Gray from the Inktober whump prompts (although these are neither inked nor written in October). Each one is 100 words long. I'll try and stick up four per chapter as they're only little. There will be spoilers for all existing seasons floating aroundChapter One: On Their Knees, Bag Over Head, Jail Cell, and NooseChapter Two: Explosion, Broken Bone, Guilt, and Scar





	1. Chapter 1

  1. **On Their Knees**



Michael tells himself he won’t beg, no matter what happens. He won’t, he _can’t_.

Campbell’s men are harsh, with cruel fists and crueller words. When Campbell finally orders it to stop they get even crueller.

“Do you know what your mum did to get you out of here?” A hand grasps in his hair, pushing him downwards, grinning as his knees hit the stone floor. “Maybe we should take a bit from you as well?”

“Please,” Michael chokes out, “P-please. No…”

When he’s finally pushed out into the sunlight, he promises himself that he will never beg for mercy again.

 

  1. **Bag Over Head**



“Is this _really necessary_.” Michael gives a sigh as Aberama Gold throws the rough burlap sack over him, obscuring his vision with a musty smell of oats and sackcloth.

“We never show outsiders where the main camp is.” Aberama says seriously.

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Michael snaps, his voice muffled by the rough sackcloth. “I bet Tommy Shelby’s never had a sack on his head.”

He works out long before his vision returns that he’s being led around in circles. When they snatch the bag away to reveal he’s exactly where he started, Michael doesn’t even bother to feign surprise.

 

  1. **Jail Cell**



Michael is a good prisoner. He does as he’s told, keeps quiet, and doesn’t cause any trouble. The guards are just doing a job, after all, and they want to do it as quickly as possible. Prisoners that don’t behave are dealt with swiftly and painfully, but Michael always behaves.

On the tenth day he asks, carefully, “Could I have a book?”

The guards laugh at him, but by the time he’s dragged out to face the noose, there are six slim paperbacks stashed under the bunk in his cell, with Michael’s small, neat handwriting littering the margins.

 

  1. **Noose**



“Did you think I would let you die?” Tommy asks, just once. “Did you think I would’ve let that happen?”

Michael glances up, then looks quickly back down at his accounting sheets, not ready to meet Tommy’s eyes. “I thought I would die, yes.”

“You really thought I’d let them hang you?”

“I think,” Michael says, amazed at how steady and cold his voice sounds, “That not everything, Tommy Shelby, always goes the way you plan it.”

Tommy goes quiet, and doesn’t bring it up again. It’s a good hour before Michael feels he can concentrate back on the numbers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explosion, Broken bone, Guilt, Scar

  1. **Explosion**



For the first few weeks afterwards, his nightmares are plagued with smoke and fire and the eternal _what if?_

What if he’d been quicker killing Hughes? What if Finn had run faster, or called louder? What if Arthur had hesitated just a moment more?

He wakes in a cold fearful sweat, the explosion fading out of his dreams in a sickening curl of white light, charred flesh and terrible high-pitched screams. He can feel the tail-end of pain, hotter than the hellfire he used to fear.

In his head he blames Arthur, because it’s a lot easier than blaming himself.

 

  1. **Broken Bone**



The first thing Michael thinks when he resurfaces out of the nausea, pain and dizziness is: _How will I wear a suit?_

With his arm in its bulky sling he can just about fit on a nightshirt, but that hardly suits the Shelby image. He settles on short sleeves, with the sling hidden underneath the line of his jacket. He’s worried his new business partners will respect him less – a man in a cast with one arm inside his jacket and a dark hat to hide the bruises on his face.

Strangely, it seems to make them respect him more.

 

  1. **Guilt**



Guilt isn’t an emotion Michael ever really feels. There’s regret in his past, sure enough, along with painful and embarrassing memories, but not guilt. Not a shred of it for leaving his adopted mother, or abandoning Charlotte to her abortion.

He associates guilt with the Church, and Michael would far rather be damned than feel a single emotion that the Church encourages. An entire institution dedicated to generating guilt breaks against the stone wall of Michael’s determination. 

He looks into Tommy’s eyes as he’s banished to America, and a lifetimes worth of repressed guilt roars over him all at once.

 

  1. **Scar**



Michael has one scar when he first meets Tommy Shelby. A small white line near his left knee from landing on a sharp rock while jumping down from a tree. He was seven years old and remembers going bawling to his adopted mother, who sighed and wrapped it up in brown paper and goose fat.

By the time he leaves Birmingham for America, Michael feels like a patchwork cushion held together by white twisting stitches. Big white worm-like lines where the surgeons operated, and puckered twisting circles where the bullets went in. His torso is almost more scar than skin.


End file.
